In network communication, each routing node creates a routing table. When a routing table of a routing node is initially created, the routing node distributes a route discovery command broadcast that carries an address of a destination node to a surrounding node. After receiving the route discovery command broadcast, the surrounding node queries the address of the destination node, and compares the address of the destination node with its own address information. If the address of the surrounding node is consistent with the address of the destination node, the surrounding node feeds back information about a packet sending path to a node that creates the route along a reverse path. If the address of the surrounding node is inconsistent with the address of the destination node, the surrounding node may record the reverse path to the node that initiates the route query, and forwards the route discovery command broadcast until the route discovery command broadcast arrives at the destination node, and then feeds back the information about the packet sending path to the node that creates the route along the reverse path. In the process of route discovery, more than one piece of routing information may be fed back from the destination node. According to some network performance parameters such as hops or link quality evaluation function accumulation (here referred to as “cost”), a route with the minimum cost is determined according to a certain selection principles, and stored in the routing table.
The routing node may process address information in the packet, and has a function of forwarding data. When receiving a packet, the routing node checks the destination node address in the packet. If the destination node address is in the routing table of the routing node, the routing node forwards the packet to a next-hop node in the routing table; if the destination node address is not in the routing table of the routing node, the routing node decides, according to service requirements, whether to initiate a route discovery process.
A low-power-consumption routing node not only takes on features of an ordinary routing node, but also has a feature of long-term sleep. That is, the low-power-consumption routing node is not always in a working state, but falls into sleep periodically to keep a state of relatively low power consumption.
In the process of implementing the present invention, the inventor of the present invention finds that: In the data transmission in a low-power-consumption routing network, each packet cannot be forwarded until the next-hop low-power-consumption routing node wakes up, which leads to long transmission delay.